To live is to act. That is, all living objects are always taking action: any object which is not taking action is not alive. To be conscious is to have a will. That is, all conscious objects have a will, and any object without a will is not conscious.

A will is a set of answers to the set of all questions of action, where a question of action is a question of the type "given circumstance X, what action would you take?". That is, applying pythonic list comprehension logic for simplicity, a will is a list equal to [ your_answer_to("given circumstance X, what action would you take?") for X in set_of_all_circumstances ].

To act in accordance with your own will is to take the action which is your own answer to the appropriate question of action when presented with circumstance X. To act not in accordance with your own will is to take an action which is not your own answer.

Of your actions, a part are in accordance with your own will, and the remainder are not. Equivalently, of your whole self, a part is free, and the remainder is not. You are as free as your actions are in accordance with your own will. You will never act completely in accordance with your own will, so you will never be completely free.

To act in accordance with another person's will is to be that person's constituent in some group. That is, if a person answers questions of action on your behalf, then that person is your representative in some group.

To be represented is necessarily to be less free, because being represented by a person implies you act in accordance with that person's will, and that person's will is inevitably not always your own. If you are completely represented by others, then you have no freedom.

Tyranny is representation without consent. That is, if a person represents you against your wishes, then that person is a thief of freedom, and by definition tyrannical.

Liberty is the right to delegate your freedom to representatives of your own choosing. To apply liberty is to consent to having another person answer questions of action on your behalf. Guaranteeing a minimum amount of freedom therefore guarantees a maximum amount of liberty. No one is at liberty to be a slave.

Could be. Or, "Tyranny is government without representation" as in "No taxation without representation".

When a person votes, he is giving one of two or more candidates permission to represent him (under your formulation). If the candidate to whom he did not give permission to represent him wins, is this voter then subject to tyranny?

To be represented is necessarily to be less free, because being represented by a person implies you act in accordance with that person's will, and that person's will is inevitably not always your own. If you are completely represented by others, then you have no freedom. — Bliss

It seems like if I am governed by people who share none of my concerns, but who force me to worry about their concerns, then I am subjected to tyranny. I guess my definition of tyranny requires more than a little coercion.

I believe we are governed by people who, by and large, do not represent us even if they were voted into office by us people, and whose interests are, in many cases, altogether opposed to mine/ouea. Still, I don't feel I am subjected to tyranny because there is not much coercion. I'm well aware that IF I were to step too far out of line, I might be subjected to very effective coercion.

Could be. Or, "Tyranny is government without representation" as in "No taxation without representation". — Bitter Crank

The colonial americans already had a representative in the sense that someone made their decisions for them (parliment), their issue was that their representative did not act in accordance with their will. When they said "No taxation without representation", they meant "no taxation without a representative who we believe will use our money to act in accordance with our will" or "no taxation without a representative we consent to".

When a person votes, he is giving one of two or more candidates permission to represent him (under your formulation). If the candidate to whom he did not give permission to represent him wins, is this voter then subject to tyranny? — Bitter Crank

I think the answer is no. By voting you are consenting to the result of the vote, not just to the candidate you voted for. That is, by voting, you apply liberty to delegate your freedom to the winner of the vote, not to who you voted for. Voting is a special case though - most representatives are not political representatives.

I'd argue that liberty is literally the opposite: that liberty is the means to delegate our freedom to representatives of our own choosing. When I apply my liberty by voting for a representative, I am delegating my political freedom to him, not being given it by him.